Skip over navigation

Journal Issue: Childhood Obesity Volume 16 Number 1 Spring 2006

Markets and Childhood Obesity Policy
Authors: John Cawley

Endnotes

  1. Cynthia Ogden and others, “Prevalence and Trends in Overweight among U.S. Children and Adolescents, 1999–2000,” Journal of the American Medical Association 288, no. 14 (2002): 1728–32. To avoid stigmatizing children, the highest clinical weight classification for children is “overweight” rather than obesity. However, in this paper I use the terms “overweight” and “obesity” interchangeably for children.
  2. Cara B. Ebbeling, Dorota B. Pawlak, and David S. Ludwig, “Childhood Obesity: Public Health Crisis, Common Sense Cure,” Lancet 360 (2002): 473–82; S. Y. S. Kimm and E. Obarzanek, “Childhood Obesity: A New Pandemic of the New Millennium,” Pediatrics 110, no. 5 (2002): 1003–07; Rebecca Puhl and Kelly D. Brownell, “Stigma, Discrimination, and Obesity,” in Eating Disorders and Obesity: A Comprehensive Handbook, edited by C. G. Fairburn and K. D. Brownell (New York: Guilford Press, 2002); Richard S. Strauss, “Childhood Obesity and Self-Esteem,” Pediatrics 105, no. 1 (2000): e15–e20.
  3. Jeffrey P. Koplan, Catharyn T. Liverman, and Vivica I. Kraak, eds., Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance (Washington: National Academies Press, 2004).
  4. The economic framework or model of eating, physical activity, and obesity is provided in detail in John Cawley, “An Economic Framework for Understanding Physical Activity and Eating Behaviors,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 27, no. 3 (2004): 1–9; John Cawley, “The Economics of Childhood Obesity Policy,” in Obesity, Business, and Public Policy, edited by Zoltan Acs and Alan Lyles (Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, forthcoming); and Darius Lakdawalla and Tomas J. Philipson, “Economics of Obesity,” in The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, edited by Andrew Jones (New York: Edward Elgar, 2006).
  5. James Hill and others, “Obesity and the Environment: Where Do We Go from Here?” Science 299, no. 7 (2003): 853–55.
  6. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Consumer Price Index—All Urban Consumers” (http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/ outside.jsp?survey=cu [November 15, 2005]).
  7. D. Lakdawalla and T. Philipson, “The Growth of Obesity and Technological Change: A Theoretical and Empirical Examination,” Working Paper 8946 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2002).
  8. Daron Acemoglu, “Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labor Market,” Journal of Economic Literature 40, no. 1 (2002): 7–72.
  9. J. P. Robinson and G. Godbey, Time for Life: The Surprising Ways That Americans Use Their Time (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999); Roland Sturm, “The Economics of Physical Activity: Societal Trends and Rationales for Interventions,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 27, no. 3S (2004): 126–35.
  10. D. M. Cutler, E. L. Glaeser, and J. M. Shapiro, “Why Have Americans Become More Obese?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no. 3 (2003): 93–118.
  11. U.S. Department of Labor, Women in the Labor Force: A Databook, Report 973 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2004).
  12. P. M. Anderson, K. F. Butcher, and P. B. Levine, “Maternal Employment and Overweight Children,” Journal of Health Economics 22 (2003): 477–504.
  13. R. M. Blank, “Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States,” Journal of Economic Literature 40, no. 4 (2002): 1105–66.
  14. Adam Drewnowski and S. E. Specter, “Poverty and Obesity: The Role of Energy Density and Energy Costs,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79, no. 1 (2004): 6–16.
  15. Jane Reed, Elizabeth Frazao, and Rachel Itskowitz, “How Much Do Americans Pay for Fruits and Vegetables?” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Agriculture Information Bulletin no. 790, July 2004.
  16. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Consumer Price Index” (see note 6).
  17. Biing-Hwan Lin, Joanne Guthrie, and Elizabeth Frazao, “Away-from-Home Foods Increasingly Important to Quality of American Diet,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Agriculture Information Bulletin no. 749, 1999.
  18. Biing-Hwan Lin, Joanne Guthrie, and Elizabeth Frazao, “Quality of Children's Diets at and away from Home: 1994–96,” Food Review 22, no. 1 (1999): 2–10.
  19. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Consumer Price Index” (see note 6).
  20. Lin, Guthrie, and Frazao, “Away-from-Home Foods” (see note 17).
  21. Ibid.
  22. Lisa R. Young and Marion Nestle, “The Contribution of Expanding Portion Sizes to the U.S. Obesity Epidemic,” American Journal of Public Health 92, no. 2 (2002): 246–49.
  23. Brian Wansink, “Environmental Factors That Increase the Food Intake and Consumption Volume of Unknowing Consumers,” Annual Review of Nutrition 24 (2004): 455–79; Barbara J. Rolls, “The Supersizing of America: Portion Size and the Obesity Epidemic,” Nutrition Today 38, no. 2 (2003): 42–53; Jenny H. Ledikwe, Julia Ello-Martin, and Barbara J. Rolls, “Portion Sizes and the Obesity Epidemic,” Journal of Nutrition 135, no. 4 (2005): 905–09.
  24. Barbara J. Rolls, Dianne Engell, and Leann L. Birch, “Serving Portion Size Increases 5-Year-Old but Not 3-Year-Old Children's Food Intakes,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 100 (2000): 232–34.
  25. Helen Smiciklas-Wright and others, “Foods Commonly Eaten in the United States, 1989–1991 and 1994–1996: Are Portion Sizes Changing?” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 103 (2003): 41–47.
  26. John Cawley and Barrett Kirwan, “U.S. Agricultural Policy and Obesity,” unpublished manuscript, Cornell University, 2005.
  27. U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Sugar and Sweeteners: Policy” (www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Sugar/policy. htm#trqs [November 15, 2005]).
  28. G. A. Bray, S. J. Nielsen, and B. M. Popkin, “Consumption of High-Fructose Corn Syrup in Beverages May Play a Role in the Epidemic of Obesity,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79, no. 4 (2004): 537–43; Michael Pollan, “The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity,” New York Times, October 12, 2003; Greg Critser, Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003). John Cawley
  29. P. C. Westcott and J. M. Price, “Analysis of the U.S. Commodity Loan Program with Marketing Loan Provisions,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Economic Report 801, 2001.
  30. E. Douglas Beach and others, “An Assessment of the Effect on Land Values of Eliminating Direct Payments to Farmers in the United States,” Journal of Economic Development 22, no. 2 (1997): 1–27.
  31. B. Gardner, “U.S. Agricultural Policies since 1995, with a Focus on Market Effects in Grains and Oilseeds,” Working Paper 02-17 (Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland, 2002).
  32. C. J. M. Paul and J. M. MacDonald, “Tracing the Effects of Agricultural Commodity Prices and Food Costs,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 85, no. 3 (2003): 633–46.
  33. Cawley and Kirwan, “U.S. Agricultural Policy” (see note 26).
  34. Harry M. Kaiser, “Distribution of Benefits and Costs of Commodity Checkoff Programs: Introductory Remarks,” Agribusiness 19, no. 3 (2003): 273–75.
  35. Noel Blisard, “Advertising and What We Eat: The Case of Dairy Products,” in America's Eating Habits: Changes and Consequences, edited by Elizabeth Frazao, Agriculture Information Bulletin no. 750 (Washington: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1999).
  36. Ibid.
  37. Brenda L. Boetel and Donald J. Liu, “Evaluating the Effect of Generic Advertising and Food Health Information within a Meat Demand System,” Agribusiness 19, no. 3 (2003): 345–54.
  38. The Pork Board, “2003 Checkoff Timeline Brochure” (www.porkboard.org/docs/checkoff%20timeline% 20bro2003.pdf [November 15, 2005]); Dairy Management, Inc., “February 2005 Dairy Checkoff Update,” press release (www.dairycheckoff.com/DairyCheckoff/MediaCenter/CheckoffUpdate/Postings/ February+ 2005.htm [October 28, 2005]).
  39. Anthony E. Gallo, “Food Advertising in the United States,” in America's Eating Habits: Changes and Consequences, edited by Elizabeth Frazao, Agriculture Information Bulletin no. 750 (Washington: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1999).
  40. D. Kunkel, “Children and Television Advertising,” in Handbook of Children and the Media, edited by D. Singer and J. Singer (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2001).
  41. H. L. Taras and M. Gage, “Advertised Foods on Children's Television,” Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 149, no. 6 (1995): 649–52.
  42. Roland Sturm, “Childhood Obesity: What We Can Learn from Existing Data on Societal Trends, Part 1,” Preventing Chronic Disease 2, no. 1 (2005): 1–9.
  43. K. Kotz and M. Story, “Food Advertisements during Children's Saturday Morning Television Programming: Are They Consistent with Dietary Recommendations?” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 94, no. 11 (1994): 1296–1300.
  44. Gerard Hastings and others, “Review of Research on the Effects of Food Promotion to Children” (Centre for Social Marketing, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, U.K., 2003).
  45. Hastings and others, “Review of Research” (see note 44); D. Borzekowski and T. Robinson, “The 30- Second Effect: An Experiment Revealing the Impact of Television Commercials on Food Preferences of Preschoolers,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 101, no. 1 (2001): 42–46.
  46. American Academy of Pediatrics, “Children, Adolescents, and Advertising,” Pediatrics 95, no. 2 (1995): 295–97; Koplan, Liverman, and Kraak, Preventing Childhood Obesity (see note 3).
  47. Richard S. Strauss and Harold A. Pollack, “Epidemic Increase in Childhood Overweight, 1986–1998,” Journal of the American Medical Association 286, no. 22 (2001): 2845–48.
  48. R. P. Troiano and K. M. Flegal, “Overweight Children and Adolescents: Description, Epidemiology, and Demographics,” Pediatrics 101, no. 3 (1998): 497–504.
  49. Kimberly Morland and others, “Neighborhood Characteristics Associated with the Location of Food Stores and Food Service Places,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 22, no. 1 (2002): 23–29.
  50. Diane Gibson, “Neighborhood Characteristics and the Local Food Environment: Supermarket Availability in the 50 Largest Cities in the United States,” Working Paper (Baruch College, City University of New York, 2005).
  51. Kimberly Morland, Steve Wing, and Ana Diez Roux, “The Contextual Effect of the Local Food Environment on Residents' Diets: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study,” American Journal of Public Health 92, no. 11 (2002): 1761–67.
  52. Joel Waldfogel, “The Median Voter and the Median Consumer: Local Private Goods and Residential Sorting,” unpublished manuscript, University of Pennsylvania, 2004.
  53. Penny Gordon-Larsen and others, “Inequality in the Built Environment Underlies Key Health Disparities in Physical Activity and Obesity,” Pediatrics (forthcoming).
  54. R. Ewing and others, “The Relationship between Urban Sprawl and Physical Activity, Obesity, and Morbidity,” American Journal of Health Promotion 18, no. 1 (2003): 47–57; Lawrence Frank, Martin Andresen, and Tom Schmid, “Obesity Relationships with Community Design, Physical Activity, and Time Spent in Cars,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 27 (2004): 87–96.
  55. J. M. Zakarian and others, “Correlates of Vigorous Exercise in a Predominantly Low SES and Minority High School Population,” Preventive Medicine 23 (1994): 314–21; J. F. Sallis and others, “Predictors of Change in Children's Physical Activity over 20 Months: Variations by Gender and Level of Adiposity,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 16, no. 3 (1999): 222–29.
  56. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Smoking Prevalence among U.S. Adults” (www.cdc.gov/tobacco/ research_data/adults_prev/prevali.htm [November 15, 2005]).
  57. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Cigarette Use among High School Students—United States, 1991–2003,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 53, no. 23 (2004): 499–502.
  58. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The Health Benefits of Smoking Cessation: A Report of the Surgeon General (Rockville, Md.: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1990).
  59. Shin-Yi Chou, Michael Grossman, and Henry Saffer, “An Economic Analysis of Adult Obesity: Results from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System,” Journal of Health Economics 23, no. 3 (2004): 565–87.
  60. Jonathan Gruber and Michael Frakes, “Does Falling Smoking Lead to Rising Obesity?” Working Paper 11483 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005).
  61. E. Finkelstein, I. Fiebelkorn, and G. Wang, “National Medical Spending Attributable to Overweight and Obesity: How Much and Who's Paying?” Health Affairs Web Exclusive, May 14, 2003.
  62. B. Reger, M. G. Wootan, and S. Booth-Butterfield, “Using Mass Media to Promote Healthy Eating: A Community-Based Demonstration Project,” Preventive Medicine 29 (1999): 414–21.
  63. Alan Mathios, “The Impact of Mandatory Disclosure Laws on Product Choices: An Analysis of the Salad Dressing Market,” Journal of Law and Economics 43, no. 2 (2000): 651–77.
  64. Jayachandran N. Variyam and John Cawley, “Nutrition Labels and Obesity,” paper presented at the 2005 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management Conference, Washington, November 3, 2005.
  65. Health Policy Tracking Service: A Thomson West Business, July 11, 2005.
  66. Koplan, Liverman, and Kraak, Preventing Childhood Obesity (see note 3).
  67. Marion Nestle, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (University of California Press, 2002); E. Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001).
  68. Dale Kunkel and others, Report of the APA Task Force on Advertising and Children (Washington: American Psychological Association, 2004).
  69. Ernst Berndt, “The United States' Experience with Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs: What Have We Learned?” Unpublished manuscript, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  70. Ibid.; Mary Engle, testimony before the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Prevention of Obesity in Children and Youth, Washington, December 9, 2003.
  71. S. A. French and others, “A Pricing Strategy to Promote Low-Fat Snack Choices through Vending Machines,” American Journal of Public Health 87, no. 5 (1997): 849–51; S. A. French and others, “Pricing and Promotion Effects on Low-Fat Vending Snack Purchases: The CHIPS Study,” American Journal of Public Health 91 (2001): 112–17; P. Hannan and others, “A Pricing Strategy to Promote Sales of Lower Fat Foods in High School Cafeterias: Acceptability and Sensitivity Analysis,” American Journal of Health Promotion 17, no. 1 (2002): 1–6.
  72. Koplan, Liverman, and Kraak, Preventing Childhood Obesity (see note 3).
  73. Zakarian and others, “Correlates of Vigorous Exercise” (see note 55); Sallis and others, “Predictors of Change” (see note 57); John Cawley, Chad Meyerhoefer, and David Newhouse, “The Impact of State Physical Education Requirements on Youth Physical Activity and Overweight,” Working Paper 11411 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005).
  74. Patricia M. Anderson and Kristin F. Butcher, “Reading, Writing, and Raisinets: Are School Finances Contributing to Children's Obesity?” Working Paper 11177 (Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005).
  75. U.S. Accountability Office, “School Meal Programs: Competitive Foods Are Widely Available and Generate Substantial Revenues for Schools,” GAO-05-563 (Washington, GAO, 2005).
  76. James E. Tillotson, “Pandemic Obesity: Agriculture's Cheap Food Policy Is a Bad Bargain,” Nutrition Today 38, no. 5 (2003): 186–90.
  77. Gardner, “U.S. Agricultural Policies since 1995” (see note 31); Paul and MacDonald, “Tracing the Effects” (see note 32); Cawley and Kirwan, “U.S. Agricultural Policy and Obesity” (see note 26).
  78. Health Policy Tracking Service (see note 65).
  79. Todd G. Buchholz, Burger, Fries, and Lawyers: The Beef behind Obesity Lawsuits (Washington: U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, 2003); Richard A. Daynard, Lauren E. Hash, and Anthony Robbins, “Food Litigation: Lessons from the Tobacco Wars,” Journal of the American Medical Association 288, no. 17 (2002): 2179–81.
  80. Larissa Roux, “Evaluation of Potential Solutions to the Health and Economic Problems Presented by Physical Activity: A Cost-Utility Analysis,” unpublished manuscript, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2005; R. A. Hirth and others, “Willingness to Pay for a QALY: In Search of a Standard,” Medical Decision Making 20, no. 3 (2000): 332–42.
  81. Roux, “Evaluation of Potential Solutions” (see note 80).
  82. J. Fang, “The Cost-Effectiveness of Bariatric Surgery,” American Journal of Gastroenterology 98, no. 9 (2003): 2097–98.
  83. A. Maetzel and others, “Economic Evaluation of Orlistat in Overweight and Obese Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus,” Pharmacoeconomics 21, no. 7 (2003): 501–12.
  84. Hill and others, “Obesity and the Environment” (see note 5).